Recently I’ve noticed an increased use of cotton lamps in Scandinavian home decor. I’m not quite sure yet how I feel about them being used in small rooms to be honest, but aesthetically I find them to be so very lovely.

This month I’ve selected five of my favorite shiny, soft, and bold decor items that I’m lovin’. They’re also decor staples that I think every cozy home should have: a sturdy tea pot, whimsical accents, decorative spice shakers, a comfy reading chair, and stylish coasters.

You might even say they would be my first picks were I ever stranded on a deserted island…after water, food, my hot water bottle and wifi that is. After all, my designer island straw-hut will need appropriate accessories.

This month I’m starting a new section of ARCTICdeco called My Favorite Things. I figure if I can’t have everything I covet, I may as well write about them and hope that one day they’ll be mine. You’re going to love this month’s line up too!

Today my husband and I took the day off to wander through Sylvia Grinnell Park (one of the nearby territorial parks) and have a tundra picnic. It was a perfect Arctic spring day: +6°C, sunny and no wind.

It’s been awhile since I last posted – but I’m happy to report there’s been LOTS of progress on the house. I’ll be updating more over the coming weeks with more pictures of our progress.

One of the challenges with renovating is that you rarely complete a room entirely before starting another project or room, and right now we have quite a few ‘nearly finished’ or ‘just started’ rooms. I’ve been wanting to wait until they are just right, but am starting to realize that may never happen, so I’ll share with you some of the in progress pics for the time being.

Today I’m sharing with you the feature wall I’ve created in my office/library/music room/studio. I wanted to create a monochrome, geometric look with minimal work/cost, and ended up settling on these wall decals from Urban Walls on Etsy.

When we bought the house this year one of the things we were most excited to do during our renovations was to find ways to make the home more energy efficient and environmentally-friendly. In addition to improving light sources, we also wanted to ensure we got to the source of our energy usage – namely heating.

Our house originally had the classic, old-school mercury thermostats, so one of the first things we did upon moving in was install programable thermostats.

Here are a few of the interesting geometric accents I’ve been coveting this week. The lamp and console I’m looking at getting for the living room, and I’d SO love a brass wire frame bear head for the dining room wall. One day.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the laundry room. Not really sure why, but I’m fairly certain I need to do something with it soon to put my mind at ease. It feels like a blank canvas and I am just dieing to smear it with finger paint! Okay, perhaps more like smear it with carefully selected latex paints in a meticulously planned design; but nonetheless, I need to do something.

After deliberating over your many comments, I decided to consider some alternative options. I also happened to stumble across this new-fangled AMAZING program online that’s like Pinterest with photo montages (yay!) called POLYVORE. Although, according to Lauren (one of the most media-savvy fashionistas I know), I’m not ACTUALLY the first to discover it and am seemingly behind in the times for not having already known (*sigh), but I’m still going to take full credit and if you have already heard about it, just pretend you didn’t.

So here are some Polyvore layouts I’ve constructed for the powder room. The first consists of most of this past week’s ideas. The second are my newer ideas that are more white and icy and I’m kinda falling in love with it and moving away from the darks. I’ve also given them very romanticized indulgent titles, after being inspired by the very cheesy paint chip names I’ve been sorting through this afternoon.

As we’re painting and caulking and sanding the greenhouse – which by the way is *nearly* there…though it seems the final details take FOREVER, but it’s gunna be great when it’s done – my thoughts keep moving to the powder room downstairs. Largely because it’s got a horrible floor right now and it’s such a tiny room, I feel like there’s so many fun things I could do with the space sooner than later.

After several days of pondering, Pinterst-ing, and blog-hopping, I think I’ve found a combination of elements that will work really well, and hopefully won’t put us over budget. It’s going to be a while before any of this actually happens though, considering we live nowhere near an IKEA, Home Depot, or major appliance stores, and so far the only thing I’ve purchased for the room is this super cute chandelier/pendant….

As I’m plotting our home renos, I find that I’m regularly referring back to key images and ideas that shape my style for the house (like those shown below). Primarily because I love so many aspects of so many styles that I often find it hard to stick to just one. Thankfully, in this day and age, we don’t have to. But I do feel the need to pin it down to a combination of 2-3 key style motifs, if not just to keep things tidy, and not over-complicate the look.

So we’re a few days away from officially owning this place and I’m eager to start some projects right away, before our sealift arrives. Unfortunately for us, we still have another 3 weeks before all of our furniture, paint, and supplies arrive on the boat, so I’ve decided to start tackling the greenhouse, since its the only room I hadn’t given much thought to, until now.

I’m pleased to introduce you to the latest member of our family. Bill.

He’s an impala. I ❤ impala.

I’ve been coveting a white stag-like head for the house for some time. But when I heard about West Elm’s white heads – hmmmm, maybe that’s not the right term…white animal heads? – I was really excited! Not only because the price was reasonable and the shipping was free, but also because it’s made of 100% recycled materials AND half of the proceeds go back to the artists community, who are a group in Haiti making the papier-mâché animal heads. The funds go into making more jobs and feeding their community. Pretty cool.

I love wallpaper. Who doesn’t, really? I love the impact a single covered wall can have on a room, and the shot of colour you can inject into a tiny space with it. Having never actually attempted to install wallpaper myself, I’m hesitant to give it a go, but I’m thinking of biting the bullet and trying it out in our small powder room downstairs. It’s a tiny space that would lend well to some playful, bright wall decor.